


We Are Alight

by deplore



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, with guest appearances by the rest of Rakuzan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deplore/pseuds/deplore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Written for the Basketball Poet Society, Challenge 51: The Art of War.) If there's a phantom on Rakuzan's basketball team, Mayuzumi thinks, it's not him. It's Akashi Seijuurou.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Here’s the thing: Mayuzumi knows that rationally, people aren’t flat characters like those that exist in books. It is strictly impossible that Akashi is calm and collected for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There must be something that gets his heart beating fast, that makes a feeling of dread sink in his stomach, that makes him feel like screaming or crying or cursing the world. And if anything vaguely resembling justice actually exists, then the cosmic balancing act of the universe should guarantee that for every perfect 100 Akashi gets on a test or love confession tucked into his shoe cubby or basketball game led to victory, he’s at least had to suffer <i>something</i> in return.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Alight

  
_Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness._  
 _Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness._  
 _Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate._  
The Art of War: Sun Tzu

* * *

 

After their first meeting, Akashi begins to come up to the rooftop during lunch every once in a while, innocuous but irritatingly pervasive. Mayuzumi, for his part, simply ignores Akashi and flips through his latest book of choice while eating pre-packaged bread. “How are you?” Akashi will ask, always too casually familiar, before he sits down a few paces from Mayuzumi and faces  the edge of the roof, staring out towards the sky. Mayuzumi never replies to the greeting, and Akashi never demands that he does.

“You can stop doing this,” Mayuzumi finally says, three or so weeks into their unspoken arrangement. He’s read enough light novels to see right through this. “This must be that sort of thing, where you want to build up rapport or win over my loyalty or whatever, by being that popular kid that inexplicably reaches out to the loser. I’m not unhappy with my life the way it is, and I’ll never think of myself as a loser, so it’s not going to work.”

There’s a pause before Akashi tilts his head towards Mayuzumi. “You’re wrong,” he replies. “I don’t want something so trite as your loyalty, nor would I demean you by asking for it in such a manner.”

“Fine. Then what _do_ you want from me?” Mayuzumi asks, even though he suspects that he’s being baited.

“I’ve already told you everything that I want from you,” Akashi answers, turning his gaze skyward again. “I don’t come up here because I want to flatter or mislead you.”

Mayuzumi hasn’t turned a page in his book in the last five minutes. He thinks he’ll probably have to re-start the chapter to remember what was going on. “Then why?”

He thinks he might see Akashi smile slightly. “Perhaps you come here because you are drawn to solitary places,” he says. “I come here because I am drawn to high places. That’s all there is to it.”

Against his better judgment, Mayuzumi is intrigued.

  
  
  


Mayuzumi knows the reason that Nebuya and Mibuchi and Hayama accept Akashi as their captain is simply because he is the person most capable of leading Rakuzan to victory. Mayuzumi, though, is not nearly so practical. He accepts Akashi as captain because Akashi has promised to make him a regular, so that he can play in official games and score points and feel as though all those hours of practice finally amounted to something tangibly worthwhile. In other words -- Akashi has allowed him to turn the plotline of his life into a triumph of the personal narrative. Exposition: a third year at an academy with a prominent basketball team is about to quit the team and give up on his dreams. The rising action begins when an enigmatic first-year offers him another chance by showing him a different path he can take, all building up to the logical climax (winning the championships) and the falling action glides smoothly into the denouement, graduation from high school with no regrets.

It’s a very standard storyline. But anybody who says that they would reject it simply for its predictability, Mayuzumi thinks, is just lying to themselves. Only hopeless romantics would rather court an uncertain conclusion despite the fact that certain success is within grasp.

  
  
  


They only begin having conversations on the rooftop after Mayuzumi is officially promoted into the first string. Akashi begins to call Mayuzumi by his given name, the same as he calls any first-stringer, and Mayuzumi can’t bring himself to get truly annoyed at how impertinent it is, even though being called _Chihiro_ evokes childhood memories of being teased for having a girly name. “How are you dealing with the higher level of practice, Chihiro?” Akashi asks.

“I have considered giving up a few times,” Mayuzumi admits flatly, turning a page in his book.

Akashi laughs, but it’s a kind sound rather than arrogant. “They must be more tiring, right? You don’t eat enough to keep up in the long-term,” he says. “You’ll lose muscle quickly if you don’t adjust your diet. A small lunch is fine, but only if you eat a decent snack before practice starts.”

“Next time, just skip straight to the lecture and don’t bother with the pleasantries,” Mayuzumi tells him. “It seems pointless.”

“I apologize,” Akashi replies, in a tone that tells Mayuzumi that he really isn’t sorry at all, like what he’s actually saying is _I’m sorry you feel that way_. “But I don’t ask questions when I don’t care to hear the answer.”

In a light novel, this is when Akashi would get up, brush the invisible wrinkles out of his pants, and leave a carton of milk or a meat bun or an apple by Mayuzumi’s side before walking down the stairs and to class. Mayuzumi begins to reconsider what kind of person Akashi is, and the plot is moved into a new direction: could he and Akashi have a relationship beyond the practical bond of being teammates? Online speculation begins on how the potential friendship will unfold, but the fact is that in a light novel, events don’t happen simply to happen. _Something_ must come of it, or else any editor worth their salt would have it stricken for taking up too much of a limited word count and replaced with more substance. The only mystery is _what_ exactly comes of it.

In reality, Mayuzumi has never seen Akashi eat lunch on the rooftop, let alone bring food along with him, which kind of makes his words sting of hypocrisy. Akashi gets up, brushes invisible wrinkles out of the knees of his pants, and walks past Mayuzumi without looking back. “I’ll see you at practice,” Akashi says, but it’s a statement of fact, not a farewell.

  
  
  


That day’s practice is a particularly brutal one -- Akashi had required them to round out with suicide runs for the entire last half hour, with a promise of double practice tomorrow for anybody who dropped out before finishing the full thirty minutes. Afterwards, Mayuzumi collapses in the locker room, closes his eyes, and contemplates: perhaps Akashi isn’t so much a real person as he is the concept of a person, like a character that exists in a book purely to advance the plot. Personally, he finds it easier to believe that Akashi isn’t a real person with a real life and real problems and real parents and a real history. That would make it easier to curse him tomorrow morning when Mayuzumi wakes up tomorrow morning with more body parts in pain than not.

He opens his eyes when something cool is tapped against his head, and looks up to find Akashi offering him a sports drink. “You were just thinking about how much you hate me for practice today,” Akashi says. “I won’t say I’m sorry, though. Wouldn’t you hate me more if I did?”

“I don’t hate you,” Mayuzumi replies. _I only hate the concept of you_ , he adds mentally.

Akashi smiles. “At any rate, good work today, Chihiro. You’re keeping up well.”

Mayuzumi watches blankly as Akashi walks over to Mibuchi, who’s complaining loudly about his hair being a mess, despite the fact that it looks basically the same as it usually does. He looks down at the sports drink -- it’s bright red. Mayuzumi doesn’t like cherry or fruit punch, but he uncaps it and drains half of it in one go anyway.

  
  
  


“This will be our starting line-up for the preliminary rounds of the Interhigh,” Coach Shirogane says. “Koboyashi, Takeuchi, Mibuchi, Yamamoto, and Mayuzumi.”

The first time he’ll be playing in an official match, and he’s a starter to boot. In the middle of the gathered crowd, Mayuzumi’s heart jumps but his expression doesn’t change. There are some murmurs of _who’s Mayuzumi?_ , but they die out quickly as the coach continues with his annoncements. He looks at Akashi, who’s standing at the coach’s side with a clipboard at hand -- they meet gazes for a split second, and his eyes widen a fraction when he realizes that Akashi has been watching him.

Akashi smiles slightly and tilts his head just a fraction to the left. Mayuzumi imagines that it’s Akashi’s way of silently asking, _Chihiro, aren’t you pleased?_

Mayuzumi fills in more of their imaginary dialogue: _No, not yet. This is not yet enough._ He stares back until the coach breaks up the meeting to begin three-man drills.

  
  
  


The day before the game, Akashi comes to the rooftop and Mayuzumi is waiting for him. “I told you from the start that I won’t be another phantom sixth,” Mayuzumi says without prelude, stepping to block Akashi from walking past him.

“I remember,” Akashi replies. “That’s why I recommended you for the starting line-up.”

Mayuzumi continues: “And I won’t play unless it makes me happy.”

“I remember that too.”

“I want to score points. I will only pass if I think it’s better to pass. Realistically speaking, my judgment isn’t so good that I’ll always make the right decision in the heat of the moment.”

“That is acceptable for the time being. You’ll learn how to make those decisions the more you play,” Akashi says.

There’s a pause before Mayuzumi asks, “Aren’t you going to call me selfish?”

“You are,” Akashi agrees. “But it’s good that you’re selfish. You desire more than just the team’s victory -- you want personal satisfaction. That’s why you can be more than Tetsuya is.”

Mayuzumi has had Kuroko Tetsuya’s name engraved into his brain as thoroughly as the rest of the Generation of Miracles at this point. “I don’t want to be compared to him anymore. I’m not a phantom sixth,” Mayuzumi echoes.

Akashi tilts his head. “What else do you want, Chihiro?” he asks.

The question sounds like a trap, perhaps, or a test of character. Akashi asks it like there must be a definitive correct answer, which means there are many, many definitively incorrect answers. “I want to win,” Mayuzumi answers.

“That is as it should be,” Akashi says, sounding satisfied. “But, Chihiro -- if I might give you a piece of advice?”

Mayzumi decides he likes it better when Akashi doesn’t bothering putting up the pretense that listening to Akashi is ever on a voluntary basis, but he nods anyway.

“No matter how much you want otherwise, the rest of the team -- especially the Uncrowned Kings -- will think of you as a phantom sixth,” Akashi tells him, voice mild but eyes ablaze. “They will accept you because your skills can make them look more brilliant in turn, and they will believe that you play for the team’s success above all else. So learn to pretend that you are what they want you to be, and hide your light inside of their lights -- like that, they won’t even notice that you don’t cast a shadow.”

Mayuzumi wonders idly how he must look to Akashi. Quite small, he imagines. “I get it,” he says dully. “Fine. Whatever. As long as I get to play the way I want to.”

Akashi smiles. “I knew you would understand.”

  
  
  


Mayuzumi isn’t nervous before his first official game so much as he feels relieved that he has finally arrived at this moment. He walks to the center line to face the other team at the beginning and eyes the other team’s small forward, who doesn’t pay him the slightest bit of attention in return. He takes his position and watches as Takeuchi takes the tip-off, going straight into their pre-planned man-to-man defense when Takeuchi loses the ball to the other team. He makes two baskets from the inside in the first half, and three more in the second, along with a plethora of tap passes sent almost exclusively to Mibuchi. He doesn’t trip or stumble once, although he passes a little too hard a few times and loses the ball in a one-on-one in the third quarter.

From the outside, Mibuchi scores almost 50 points single-handedly. Like that, they win without making any substitutions or straining themselves too much.

“Yo, Yamamoto, didn’t it kinda feel like we were playing with four people the whole time?” he hears Kobayashi say after the game’s done and they’re walking back to the locker rooms.

“Yeah, now that you mention it. Who was our fifth again? Mibuchi, you, me, Takeuchi…” Yamamoto trails off.

Mayuzumi is annoyed,  but there is a vaguely foreign feeling of self-satisfaction blooming in his chest that’s warm and a little suffocating, so he lets it go.

  
  
  


Here’s the thing: Mayuzumi knows that rationally, people aren’t flat characters like those that exist in books. Everybody has different dimensions; everybody shows different sides to different people. It is strictly impossible that Akashi is calm and collected for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There must be something that gets his heart beating fast, that makes a feeling of dread sink in his stomach, that makes him feel like screaming or crying or cursing the world. And if anything vaguely resembling justice actually exists, then the cosmic balancing act of the universe should guarantee that for every perfect 100 Akashi gets on a test or love confession tucked into his shoe cubby or basketball game led to victory, he’s at least had to suffer _something_ in return. And he thinks he’s seen hints of something else underneath Akashi’s skin, something beyond intimidating or compelling -- something intense and visceral. Something in him that must have been nurtured, not nature.

The first time Mayuzumi truly glimpses at it, though, is during their fourth Interhigh match. During the first half, they manage to gain a slight lead, but struggle to shake their opponents off and establish a solid point difference. Nevertheless, the coach refuses to make any member switches, insisting on saving their regular players’ strength for harder matches. During the halftime break, Akashi stands up in the middle of the locker room. Everybody quiets instantly.

“Katashi,” he says, addressing one of the active players. “You will get up and hit me in the face. If you hold back, I will have you do it again.”

There’s a pause so tense that Mayuzumi can practically feel the people around him holding their collective breaths. Finally, Katashi raises a fist and punches Akashi, who doesn’t even flinch. “Next, Yori,” he says. And they move down the line like that, until all five of them have done their turn. Mayuzumi isn’t one of them, but somehow it feels like his knuckles ache just watching.

Akashi turns to face all of them. “A commander seeks victory from strategic advantage and does not demand it from his men,” Akashi says, expression deeply contemplative. There’s a bruise beginning to form under his left eye -- discolored skin with mismatched eyes. “If this is truly the extent of your abilities, then it must be my fault that we aren’t faring better. Therefore, if we lose, I will further repent before each and every one of you.”

Mayuzumi gets the feeling Akashi’s idea of repenting is even more extreme than a slap in the face. The rest of the team probably feels the same way, because within the first few minutes of the third quarter, they have a 10 point lead and it only widens from there to the end.

(It’s only after the game is over that Mayuzumi begins to wonder: how much of that was manipulation? And how much of it was genuine?)

  
  
  


Mayuzumi is put in a few more times during the Interhigh, but only sporadically. He doesn’t complain, though, because the Uncrowned Kings each play about as often as he does -- Akashi seems to have imposed some sort of challenge upon his strategic prowess and refuses to send more than one of them out for any given game, if at all. And Akashi himself spends all of the tournament on the bench, back straight and arms crossed with perfect posture, watching how things unfold so intently that their post-match meetings last for nearly as long as the games themselves despite the fact that Akashi never so much as takes a note down on paper. Any time they fail to establish at least a 10-point advantage within the first quarter, Akashi does some reprisal of his repentance speech. Each time the implied threat of self-harm becomes more overt, but the novelty of it fails to wear off.

By the time the Interhigh is down to the last four teams left, though, Akashi seems to have lost his interest in how things will end up and drops all self-imposed victory conditions for simple, brute force. Against Yousen and Touou, he sends out all three of the Uncrowned Kings along with two players from the first string and gives them a single instruction: “Secure Rakuzan’s victory”. They bring back the trophy without any hitches, and Akashi doesn’t put in a single minute of game time for the entire tournament. The bruise on his face fades just in time for the awards ceremony.

“You know, it was really weird!” Hayama says loudly during the train ride back to Kyoto. “You’d think that Yousen and Touou would send out their Miracle first years, right? Without ‘em on the court, it was just too easy.” He looms over the seat in front of him, where Akashi is sitting next to Mibuchi. “Hey, Akashi! Do you know why they didn’t play?”

Mayuzumi watches as Mibuchi immediately begins chiding Hayama for being too rowdy. Akashi, though, turns to look at Hayama and says, “Like us, they are waiting for the Winter Cup. That is where the true competition will begin.”

_What do you know, there are people who actually say stuff like that in real life_ , Mayuzumi thinks to himself, and closes his eyes to take a nap.

  
  
  


Back at Rakuzan, their impromptu rooftop meetings resume. “The Winter Cup will be starting soon. By then, it’ll be too cold to come up here anymore,” Akashi says, in a brooding sort of way that makes Mayuzumi think that Akashi isn’t speaking to him so much as Akashi is speaking while he just happens to be there.

“Mmhmm,” Mayuzumi hums. He’d begun a new light novel series a few days after they brought the Interhigh trophy back to Rakuzan, so he pretends to read as he carefully levels his eyes above the top of his book so that he can catch Akashi in his peripheral. Akashi isn’t even looking at him, staring out at the sky as always. The fall breeze catches in Akashi’s hair, brushing his bangs out of his face. Mayuzumi has to admit to himself -- the moment is quite picturesque.

If Akashi were a light novel character, then there would have to be room to elaborate on his backstory, because nobody is just _born_ as screwed-up as Akashi is and readers will want to know why he turned out the way he did. And here, the setting is almost too ideal for it -- the crisp autumn sky is light blue with white clouds drifting hazily through. The trees are turning the same bright red and yellow as Akashi’s eyes. There’s Akashi (possibly tormented; if so, then by necessity, beautifully tormented) and there’s Mayuzumi (nonjudgmental, and therefore trustworthy), a mismatch that somehow happened to cross paths. The plot’s inertia would demand that they have a conversation about Akashi’s past.

Mayuzumi opens his mouth and says --

  
  
  


Mayuzumi likes light novels because -- as their name would imply -- they are not particularly heavy. Everything is laid out simply: this is a theme, this is a symbol. Cherry blossoms always relate to graduation, literal or metaphorical. Red spider lilies are for paths that will no longer cross. This is a character, and this is how this character is motivated. The full impact of the story lies on one or two, _maybe_ three easily identifiable layers. As such, he doesn’t particularly enjoy postmodern pastiches or paradoxes, paranoia or poioumena -- there’s too much left undefined.

Light novel characters try to pass as real people but they are never quite normal, although some might put up a good facade of normality. For example: perhaps they treat winning like breathing, or implicitly threaten self-harm to motivate others. Perhaps they’re a student with inexplicable control over the entire school. Perhaps they talk in all contrasts (quiet and dangerous, polite and imposing, kind and sharp). Perhaps they notice invisible people. Perhaps they _are_ invisible. This makes it easier to understand them than real people, and Mayuzumi likes that. He doesn’t have to look underneath the underneath to understand, which is good, because there is always a risk inherent in reading into things too hard.

Aside from the fact that he just doesn’t like to, Mayuzumi’s specialty is misdirection -- he simply can’t afford to misread. He has his own personal narrative set and locked in. He doesn’t need Akashi’s too.

  
  
  


“So you do feel the cold.”

Akashi turns and smiles. “I am, after all,” he replies, “only human.”

**Author's Note:**

> Meta disguised as fic disguised as meta. I'm sorry, Mayuzumi, this is everything I purported that you'd hate in fiction. Thank you for reading and I hope this fic didn't reek too strongly of 2postmodern4u because I actually am not much a fan of that myself, ahaha...ha.
> 
> This was originally posted at the Basketball Poet Society on Tumblr for Challenge 51: The Art of War. 
> 
> p.s. do you like porn? Please check out my [kink bingo](http://suwho.dreamwidth.org/1432.html) sheet and leave suggestions (here or at my DW!) for pairings/situations for a kink that tickles your fantasy and maybe I'll write questionable porn someday.


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